He's gonna write you a love song
by Feethefabulous
Summary: The name’s Cho. Kimball Cho. I’m a Special Agent for the CBI, and up till Patrick Jane taught me what the power of music could do, I’d never gotten a girlfriend before. Feb. Jello-Forever challenge.
1. Chapter 1

**Written for the February Jello-Forever Challenge. Exams are coming up and there are so many things to do, but I loved the prompt and decided to write this in several parts. I think one fic a month is good enough for me. *dusts her hands off***

The name's Cho. Kimball Cho. I'm a Special Agent for the CBI, and up till last Saturday, I'd never been in love.

Don't worry; it's not a sensitive topic for me. Throughout my career, nearly everyone I've worked with has popped that question. _So, do you have a Girlfriend, Cho? Can we see her? Will she be coming to so-and-so Party, or blah-blah-blah Social Event? _I usually just tell them no, and on occasion force the corners of my mouth up a few centimeters. Then I make an excuse that I have to go to lunch, and then I get back to doing my job.

Sometimes I pretend I have a girlfriend, if I happen to be going out with some cute woman from the line at the 7-11 that night. It never turns out to be very interesting, though. Van Pelt and Wayne have their little canoodles after work, and Jane gets to flirt with the Boss all the time, even though she pretends she doesn't like it. Those two have great chemistry, by the way, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The point is, for me it usually ends up with the girl talking nonsense about me and then about herself, and in the end we just kiss and I make sure to 'accidentally' not pick up whenever she calls for the next two weeks. It goes without showing that I suck at dates.

So, up till last weekend, you could safely call me a Bachelor, or at least the male version of an Old Maid. I never thought I'd have it coming for me, but then again I'd never picked up a romance novel in my life and therefore never heard about romance clichés, either. That afternoon, Boss, Jane and I had been interviewing a witness for a case, and on the ride home Jane got yelled at for tapping on the guy's fish tank. Poor goldie had gone belly-up shortly after the tank tapping. We'd been thrown out of the house.

"He TOLD you not to touch it! He SPECIFICALLY told you that the fish was in the last stages of its life." Boss was slapping the dashboard with the flat of her right palm while distractedly pushing the steering wheel with the other.

"Come on, it's just a fish." Jane leaned over the side of Boss's chair to get a better shot at talking to her.

"It's not just a fish to him. You might as well have lost the one person who could tell us something about the case."

"No I didn't. We learned that he loves his fish, and that means that he'd do anything for them. Kill a man for their sake? Possibly, but I don't think so. No, he's got something to do with this, but we don't have anything to tie him down as the murderer just yet. You've really got to start paying attention to details, Teresa, otherwise you'll always be the woman who loses out." With that, Jane smiled and quickly retreated to the back, where he'd been banished fifteen minutes earlier.

Boss made a sort of growling sound, but continued to focus on her driving. Eventually we slowed down at a heavily traveled intersection, which was, at this point in the day, in the latter half of the rush hour. It wasn't a good time to bring up small talk, so for the most part, we just kept quiet. I let my eyes wander around, looking at the cars and the street signs outside. That was when I saw her. Petite Korean woman with large dark eyes, a cute Spice Girls bob and smooth ivory skin. About 5'3" from what I could see of her, driving a blue Saab, plate number 294-OIP. I even profile the ladies I plan to date.

Or at least, would have planned to date. "Finally!" Boss shouted, and we rolled forward. The traffic light had turned green a couple seconds ago, and now 294-OIP Blue Saab Lady was turning the corner, in the opposite direction. I turned my head back to the front, but not before I caught sight of Jane sneaking a peek at me through the rearview mirror. I kept my eyes focused on him, hoping it'd intimidate him, but it didn't. Once Jane's got something on you, you'll never be able to throw him off.

* * *

We got back to the bullpen a few minutes before the clock hit 6. Van Pelt and Rigsby were, thankfully, glued to their desks and either on their laptops or phones. We got together and discussed, or rather, argued, what we had on the case. The two women thought that Jane's fish lead was ridiculous; we guys backed him up. Eventually Van Pelt gave up, but Boss still had to be wheedled into it. And even then, she made us run extra hours.

"Well, from what we've got so far, and because of Jane's preoccupation with _fish, _I suppose we do need to search harder. Van Pelt, I need you to run phone records and credit card records for the victim as well as all the people we've been in contact with throughout the case. I'll take Rigsby and Cho to see if there's any evidence we can pull from the dead guy's house. Patrick, you go home."

Sometimes I can never understand why she makes us work overtime and lets Jane go free when he's the one who spouts all these crazy theories in the first place.

"We'll take a break. Go grab something to eat, takeout or sandwiches or whatever. Cho and Rigsby, we'll meet downstairs in thirty minutes." Our group loosely broke up, and we headed back to get our things ready. Jane was the only one left standing. He'd put on his sad puppy face, but although Boss was smirking at him, I knew she wasn't buying it this time."

"Don't worry, we'll use your services again tomorrow. The CBI can handle things for now,"-here she frowned, her nose flaring as she sniffed the air-"and when was the last time you took a bath?"

"This morning."

Rigsby grinned at me. I turned the corners of my mouth up in reply. Boss's eyes opened wide. "Don't tell me you went dumpster diving while I was in the restroom."

"Not like it hurt anyone," Jane said, looking pretty hurt himself. He grabbed his coat and headed off to the elevators without looking back. Personally I wished he'd stayed-the faster the job got finished, the faster we could go. I'd been looking forward to my weekend-there was a _Criminal Minds _marathon starting on Sunday at 8 in the morning, and you can't watch TV if you're sleeping when it starts.

I grabbed my wallet and headed to the stairs, planning to grab a footlong at Subway's and then get back to reply a few emails. On my way round the corner I passed someone in a light blue business dress, looking around as though they were new to the building. I was just about to open the stairway door when I stopped and looked back twice. There, a few inches taller than I'd estimated her to be, was Miss 294-OIP.

I stopped for another moment to swallow and pull my composure back from wherever it'd suddenly disappeared to, then walked up to her. "Looking for somebody?"

She turned and looked directly back at me, not even cracking a smile. Odd. Most females did, especially if they thought I was scary. "Teresa Lisbon's office?"

So she had business with the CBI. Probably a lawyer, or some government agent.

"Right down the hall, glass office to your right. I can show you the way."

"That won't be necessary," the woman cut in, but for some reason I'd already reached down grabbed her hand. It was too late to turn back now, so I quickly pulled her down the hall and shoved her towards the office. She wrangled her hand out of mine-obviously she didn't care much about manners-and headed to Boss's door. I watched her butt as she moved. For someone so curvy, it was interesting how her body didn't sway very much.

I yanked open the stairway door and walked right into-guess who?-Jane. "Ssh," he whispered, holding a finger to his lips. "Just trying to get back in."

"If you forgot something, you could have taken the elevator."

"No, I didn't forget anything. Cho, I need to get back into the victim's house. There's something there, I know it, and I need to be with you to find it."

I gave him my celebrated deadpan look. "Lisbon's busy, but I'm sure if you ask nicely she'll let you come along."

"Listen Kimball, it's important. I'll hide in the back, nobody will notice me, and believe me, by tomorrow evening, Teresa will not regret that I stowed along. Just do me a favor this time, ask to drive the van, get there 5 minutes earlier, and I'll huddle in the back and not make a peep."

"No."

Jane rolled his eyes. "Very well, fine." He edged past me into the hall. "I'll just have to go talk to Teresa myself and say that I need to come along…and tell what's-her-name that you've got a crush on her."

Now this was bad. "Crush on who?"

"That girl who you showed to Teresa's office. She's also the same one whose car you were ogling earlier."

I swallowed hard, looked him straight in the eye. "I don't have a crush on her."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't."

"You do. You can't hide these things from me, Cho." Jane smiled winningly back at me. It took all I had to control heat from radiating out of my body.

"Now I know why everyone calls you a manipulative little bastard."

"Perfect." Jane clapped his hands together and edged back into the stairwell. "I'll be waiting for you here. And don't worry," he called as I shoved past him and hurried down the stairs, "You'll learn something new too, when all of this is over."

Learn something? The last thing I had in mind was learning anything from Jane. There were a lot of things that went on in the world, some good, some bad. One thing I was sure of, though, was that I'd seen enough of them to know that there wasn't anything great to expect.


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's the next chapter. With a few hours for concentration and some reviews *cough* I should be able to get this done by February's end.**

A couple of hours later, Wayne and I were sitting in a dead guy's living room running through pile after pile of old papers. It didn't help that he'd been a pack rat as well as computer illiterate while he'd been alive. "You wonder how we ever get things like this done, eh?" Rigsby said, grimacing as he slit open another box.

I leaned over. "What's in that one?"

"More papers. Ugh. Didn't anyone ever teach this guy how to organize?" Wayne shook his head, tutted, and started arranging the papers in orderly piles. He'd been acting more and more like this recently, and straying further away from the Rigsby I'd once known. Maybe it was just one of those natural sorts of changes, like when you love peanut butter and wake up one day and decide that you don't. But I suspected otherwise.

Boss was upstairs combating the same kind of mess in the bedroom, so I decided to open my mouth. Nothing to gain, but nothing to lose, either. "You know, you sound more and more like Van Pelt each day."

"Really"

"Yeah. It's gotten more obvious lately. Sometimes it seems like you blow hot and cold on us, too."

"What?" Quickly I ducked my head down towards the papers, trying to look like a Humble Cho. Unfortunately, Rigsby wasn't buying it. "You mean blow hot and cold on the team?"

"Since you started hooking up with the rookie, yeah."

"I do not!"

A creak on the front porch startled us into silence. There were two more footsteps, small and tentative, and the doorknob started to turn. Putting down all previous hard feelings, Wayne and I nodded to each other. Automatically, we raised our guns at the door.

The door unwedged a crack, and a curly blonde head peeked through. "Thought I heard yelling in here."

Shoot. I'd forgotten Jane. Rigsby sighed in relief and lowered his gun, then stomped over and pulled him in by his collar. "Didn't Lisbon tell you to get your ass home?"

"Well yes, she did. But you should know by now that I never listen to her, unless she gives me a really good incentive to do so."

"But how'd you get here? Shoot, the place's sectioned off and everything."

"Oh, Cho smuggled me over in the back of the van," Jane replied, jerking his thumb over at me. I gritted my teeth behind my closed lips. The man tattled shamelessly.

Rigsby glared at me, but let Jane go. There was an awkward silence, as all three of us looked back at the mess of papers behind us.

"Where's Teresa?"

"Looking through stuff upstairs. Man was a real pack rat."

"Ironic, isn't it?" Jane neatly sidestepped the boxes and headed over to the fake fireplace, inspecting all the little trinkets lined up neatly on its mantle. "You collect so much stuff, hoarding all your memories in one safe place, and yet you never stop to realize that someday, another person will come and look at your precious memories and deem them completely redundant." He picked up a beer bottle sculpture and toyed with it, tapping his finger against the thin aluminum.

Rigsby rolled his eyes. "Right, Patrick, enough playing around. You wanted to do your thing, so start by moving these aside and getting some more stuff out from the broom closet." I walked over with Jane, standing on tiptoe and handing items off the top shelf to Jane. We were going to find the wall, no matter how long it took us.

"You're wasting your time," Patrick muttered as he came back for another box.

"Oh really?" I grunted. "If there's really something worthwhile that isn't in this mess, why haven't you shown it to us yet?"

"Patience, patience," Jane replied. "And anyways, I didn't mean that. You're wasting your time thinking about whether you'll meet her again, and whether she'll chat you up next time. Which she won't, by the way, because she's just as conservative as you are and doesn't talk to anyone who can't prove that he's not chauvinistic."

He was right. And annoyingly so. But it hadn't really been in the way he'd described. Having seen Wayne's slow merge into a new being called RigsPelt, I'd been wondering what would happen if I ever managed to find someone, and whether I would have to change too. The lawyer girl had seemed nice, but if I was supposed to turn into some girly guy who brought her flowers and watch romantic comedies, then it was a no-go. Still, I hadn't been able to push her out of my mind long enough for Jane not to suspect it.

"Oof!" Jane said, crashing a heavy box down on the floor with a loud thump. Boss's footsteps sounded upstairs, and Jane instantly looked terrified. "Hide me," he whispered, and darted off to the kitchen, where I heard some loud clanging before everything went silent. A small head peeked out from the top of the stairs.

"Everything okay down there? I thought I heard someone yell."

"Yeah, fine. I just dropped something." Boss looked suspiciously at me, then at the box ten feet away. Quickly, I stepped over and shoved the box into the living room. "Rigsby and I were just thinking that we might be getting close to finding something."

"Oh, great. Want me to come down and help?"

Jane peeped his head out from behind the kitchen doorway and made a throat-slitting motion.

"Nah, we're good. And it's just a gut feeling."

"Well, if you need anything, I'm upstairs." Boss sighed and disappeared out of sight. I heaved the box into the living room and went to confront Jane.

"Weren't you gonna announce your presence?"

"Not yet," Jane said, holding a finger to his lip. "I'm supposed to lead you guys to the treasure trove, first, right?"

"Fine, shoot."

The man beamed and pulled me back into the living room. Plopping down on the couch, he swung his legs up and made himself comfy. I sifted through some random files, keeping one eye on Jane. For a while he sat there, looking thoughtful, then turned around and peeked behind the sofa.

Rigsby was still sorting papers furiously. "Hey," he complained, "if you're going to come on an investigation, the least you can do is help out."

When Jane turned back and grinned at us, he had a guitar in his hand. "Dead guy was a musician!" He picked it up, squinted an eye to look on the inside. "And it's a nice one, too. This was probably one of the loves of his life."

I've got to admit, it was a piece of work. All burnished wood and inlays, with the gloss rubbed off in a few places where the guitar'd seen more wear and tear. I'd never been one for singing cowboy movies, but looking at it made me wish I'd paid more attention when Mom had borrowed tapes from the library.

"Ha," Rigsby let out a short laugh. "Bet you can't sing something for us, Jane."

"Never underestimate a blonde," Patrick said, and with that, he laid the guitar on his knee, opened his mouth wide, and started belting out the first chords of a Sara Bareilles song. I let my jaw open too. Not to sing, mind you, but because I recognized the tune from the radio. I don't keep up with song names, but the part Jane was singing went something like this:

_"I'm not going to write you a love song, 'cause you asked for it, 'cause you need one, you see…_Jane, _what_ are you doing here?!"

Like Rigsby and I, the Boss had heard the music. Unlike Rigsby and I, she wasn't clapping her hands, or mentally singing along, or even smiling.

"I thought I told you to get home."

"But I did take my shower," Jane whined. "And anyways, I was planning to help you with the case. After, of course, I gave you all a very important message."

Boss snorted. "You mean a message about some girl who dumped you because of your flightiness, demands and bad singing?"

"You've got to admit though Lisbon, he's pretty good." Rigsby looked at me, then back at Boss. "And anyhow, he was going to show us where we could find the evidence we need."

She snorted again and smiled generously at us. "In this rat hole? I doubt he will. Jane may have alleged psychic habits, but he's not a supercomputer."

"Of course I'm not. I'm a real live man, and I know where to find it simply because I am one." Jane tossed the guitar to Boss, then slid over to the fake fireplace and looked up the chimney.

"Already checked there when we got here, Jane." I said, deciding against my will to save him from embarrassment. "There's nothing."

"Appearances can be deceiving," Jane replied, sliding his hand up and feeling around. We all looked at him, with one hand stuck up the chimney, the other absently scratching his thigh. I don't know whether the scratching bit helped, but either way, Jane hit gold. "Aha," he said, his 'aha' look coming up on his face. He pulled a small bundle of envelopes out of the chimney and handed it proudly to Boss.

Rigsby breathed a sigh of relief. "That's got to be the one. I've got to ask though, can we go now? I'd like to get home."

"Right, we'll work on this tomorrow. Let's get back to the office and drop these off, then call it a day. I'll be waiting in the car." Boss slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out the door, leaving the three of us to clean up and turn off the lights.

"Say, Patrick," Wayne called as we organized our gear and collected extra files, "What was the message in the song, anyway? Something for Lisbon?"

"Actually, it was meant for one of you," Jane replied carelessly. "I thought you'd figured it out already." He looked at us square in the eye. I guess our clueless faces hinted to him that we'd missed the point.

Sighing, he rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Always the theatrics. "Don't write people love songs just because they ask for them," he said. "Write them because they _don't._" And with that, he turned and followed Lisbon's steps out the front door.

"Now what's that supposed to mean!" Rigsby yelled after him, but he'd already gone. Wayne shook his head and pulled me up to get going. I clenched my jaw and followed him. Jane was playing with my head again. What'd he mean, write a love song for those who didn't ask? If he was planning to set me up with Lawyer Lady, he was in big trouble. I handled my own business, just like everyone else on this planet. And if Patrick thought he could mess with me just like he did with everyone else on this team, he was dead wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

**I'll admit, after I saw the promos for Blood in, Blood Out, I decided to change the direction this was going in. However, I was very happy to learn that Cho's girlfriend is, indeed, a lawyer, so it goes perfectly with the scheme of things :)  
**

Jane sauntered into the office, looking a bit annoyed. Until, of course, he saw me typing at my desk. "Oh, hello Cho," he said, smiling and giving me a little wave. "Am I correct in seeing that I'm not the only one Lisbon called to work on our day off?"

"Yeah," I said, not looking up from my notes. "Says there's a suspect coming in for an interview, and some legal business we've got to work on."

"Legal? I thought we already obtained the warrant to search the house last night."

"Yeah, but there was some fine print. Bits of legal flotsam and all that."

"You're finally here!" Boss stormed into the office, unsuccessfully trying to hide her distress. She stopped in front of us, deciding where to place us, then made her decision. "Jane, you're on interrogation with me; we'll see what can be extracted from this guy. Cho, you'll speak with the lawyer. Her name's Elise Han; make sure you communicate to her exactly what we need from her clients. I gave her a brief outline yesterday, but you're there to fill in the blanks."

Nobody had mentioned a lawyer when I got called in. Boss looked at me expectantly. What else could I do? I forced my head to nod, and she smiled in relief.

"Good! Come on, Jane, we've got an interrogation to do." Jane followed obediently, turning for a moment to wink and make a thumbs-up sign at me. This wasn't funny.

"I assume you're the agent who'll be speaking to me today?"

I turned around to see her several feet away from my nose. Drat, she was already here. Now that I was really looking up close at her, I admitted in my head that she wasn't as petite as I'd imagined. Yesterday she must have been wearing flats, for today she was almost taller than me.

"Um, yeah." It took all my self control to keep my sweat glands under control, but I somehow managed to lead her to one of the interview rooms and sit her down. While getting myself into the opposite chair, I snuck a glance at her face again. She hadn't smiled since we'd met, and it was a pity. Her face was nice and perfectly framed by her hair. Would have looked lovely with a smile.

When a guy's brain starts using words like _lovely _to describe a girl, you know that you're either falling hard or starting to go insane.

"Are we going to begin?"

I snapped back to reality, where Elise (great, now I was thinking about her on first-name terms) was staring at me expectedly. "Right," I replied, and delved right into things, answering all questions properly, explaining everything that she needed to know about, all the while never delving too far from my monotone. By the time she packed up her things and showed herself out, I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

Fifteen minutes later, I was about to pack my stuff and get ready to get home when I saw Jane frowning and holding a large black package. On a typical day I'd have raised my eyes to heaven and pretended that I'd never seen him, but the shape of the package looked familiar. As I got closer I realized that it was shaped like a guitar. Jane set it down on the floor, deftly undid the cover, and pulled out-big surprise-the nice acoustic from the dead guy's house.

"You know you're not supposed to steal evidence," I said, keeping my voice level while trying to figure out how Jane'd managed to sneak something as obvious as that out of someone's house, and with three specialized CBI agents keeping track of him too.

"Technically, it's not stolen," Jane said. "Apparently the guitar was left to our witness through the victim's will; paradoxically, though, he doesn't play. He said I could have it, so all that was left was for me to dig it out of my car boot and put a label on it." It was only then that I noticed the waterproof labels on his sofa, all ready to be pasted on the guitar.

"Still, Boss will have a fit when she finds out."

"Then this'll quiet her," Jane decided, and started crooning out an impromptu version of some Alanis Morrisette song. He was being too loud. Everyone was staring at us, and at me to stop it, but I decided to let that slide for the moment in order to listen to Jane's lyrics.

"_I can feel so unsexy for someone so beautiful, so unloved for someone so fine.  
I can feel so boring for someone so interesting, so ignorant for someone of sound mind."_

"PATRICK JANE!"

Like the 50 other people on the same floor, Boss had heard. Unlike the 50 other people on the same floor, she was not smiling, or at least even chuckling in amusement. I should have anticipated that, though. If Rigsby and I couldn't sway her yesterday, there wasn't a chance that a public setting would.

"You're annoying everyone and making a racket. Put that thing back down and get back to-hold on, how'd you get hold of that so fast, anyways?"

Patrick smiled up at her in reply. Boss rolled her eyes. "You have no idea what will happen to me when word of this gets out. I do hope you're feeling very _unsexy _and _ignorant _right now."

"Only in front of you, my dear," Jane said, turning on his Aussie charm. A hint of a smile crept up onto Boss's face, and she quickly retreated into her glass box, probably to chuckle to herself.

"I'll do that famous Spice Girls song next time we're alone together at night," Jane muttered, placing the guitar back into its case. "She'd love that."

"You know you take full advantage of Lisbon," I said, helping him snap the case shut. "It's not like she's being nice to you or anything, it's that she can't help it. You're just manipulating her into letting you off easy."

"Well, of course. Manipulation and mind-reading's what I do best."

"So you'd just play this game with her, all for the sake of getting your way."

That set him quiet. Jane looked away for a few seconds, trying to replace the startled look on his face with one of composure. "I don't really manipulate her, you know," he said quietly. "A person can only be manipulated if she wants to."

"You're saying that Boss-"

"Yeah. But she's not going to admit it for a while, is she?"

A voice startled the both of us before I could catch the expression on Jane's face. "Excuse me? Mr. Jane."

Jane stood up and turned around, but all I had to hear was the slightly-uneven click of her heels to know who she was. She was still here?

"I heard you singing," she said, and to my slight horror, her mouth turned up in the hint of a smile. "That song's pretty nice, I have it on my iPod."

"Do you?" replied Jane, and then I knew. She'd already fallen for Jane's voice and ineffable charm. There was no way that she'd look at me twice after this.

Elise and Jane started chatting about things like music, guitars, and whatnot. Casually sliding over to my desk, I opened my laptop and checked my email, delving deep down into matters of business and forcing my ears away from their mindless chatter.

And it worked. Really well, in fact. I didn't even notice a thing until I looked up to see Jane frowning and tapping me on the shoulder, and Elise gone.

"Why'd you leave? I was just about to draw you into the conversation and then you upped and bumbled off to your mundane chores. She's a very nice girl, Cho. And she likes music, she'd be your type."

"What do you mean, _my type_?" I yelled, breaking my rule of cool and raising my voice. "If there's anyone she likes, it's you. Shoot, I can't even sing."

"You'll never know if you don't try." Jane looked directly into my eyes, and against my will, I felt myself getting a bit calmer. "And anyhow, she does notice you. She mentioned you just now, and you'd have looked up at her and _looked back _if you'd been anything more than a thick skull."

I stared at Jane mutely. "So?"

"So…" Jane rolled his eyes, turned away. "I suppose you're right, this could be a hopeless case for you. I had been planning something you could do, but since you're not interested, oh wells…"

He was killing me. I leaned over my desk, stared him square in the eye. "Tell me."

Jane raised his eyebrows and raised his hands in the air in defeat. "Alright, alright. It'll involve a bit of work, but near the end there'll be the possibility of self-humiliation. Think you're still up to it?"

Maybe it was the memory of her face, or the feeling of Jane coercing me again, or the nagging feeling that I knew I _couldn't_ win without his help. But I nodded my head, and sealed my fate.

"Alright," Jane said quietly, glancing over at Lisbon's office. "Now, if you don't mind staying for longer, we can start tonight after everyone else goes home."

I thought of my Criminal Minds marathon. "Couldn't this wait?"

"No time. From what I've gotten from our witness, the case will be _solved _tomorrow. Then Lawyer Lady will come one more time, briefly, to get the rest of her papers settled. And if you don't act then, you might never see her again."

I bit my lip. "Fine."

"Perfect!" Jane's eyes darted across the office. Nobody seemed to be around, it being lunchtime and all. Slowly but surely, he opened the guitar case.

"Well, we could always start early. It'll begin with this, now, open your hands…"


	4. Chapter 4

**CAUTION: This chapter includes singing Cho! Try singing along with the original version of the song, I hope the lyrics fit in alright :P**

**I hope you enjoyed this fanfic, just as I enjoyed writing in Cho's POV. Someday I might want to do something in first person again; it's just so fun getting into character's heads. Thanks for following so far! By the way, song lyrics in the fic so far are credited to Sara Bareilles, Alanis Morrisette, the Spice Girls and Jason Mraz. **

I spent all my after-hours, breaks and lunchtimes that day under Jane's tutelage, learning bits like holding the guitar properly, getting it to sound right, and hitting high notes with my throat. Occasionally Van Pelt or Rigsby would drift over to see how I was getting along, but I don't think they ever guessed the real reason why I was taking up guitar. To put it bluntly, I still wasn't sure how this was going to help me either. Likely the only thing keeping me on it was faith in Jane, that he knew where he was taking me.

It was nearing 5 o clock. Wayne and Van Pelt were already out, setting the big Mentalist trap, and in less than an hour we were scheduled to meet them and catch the real killer. Thoroughly standard Jane procedure, except that while we were waiting, he wasn't reading a book or making offhanded remarks to the crook, hoping to lure him into the trap. Instead, I was sitting on the sofa trying to follow Jane's lead while he taught me the chords for the 'perfect' song to sing to Miss Han.

"Kimball, you're getting it all wrong. Start again." Jane waved his hand around in his pettish girly way, sighed and forced me back to the beginning. I tried again, but the clock's slowly moving hands distracted me and I messed the lyrics up, saying the word "busty" instead of "busy".

"It's not going to work," I said, heaving the stupid guitar off my lap. "It's almost time for us to go. Besides, I hate this song."

Jane looked offended. "It's the perfect love song; it flatters your otherwise flat voice, praises her on how precious and beautiful she is, and has the words _I love you baby_. She'll fall for you in an instant and then you'll be together just like that." He snapped his fingers together for emphasis.

I gave him my deadpan glare. "Maybe for some other girl it's perfect, but not her. She's smart; she won't fall for flattery. I'm not a born singer, either, so it doesn't matter if my voice is flat. It's been all my life."

Jane fell silent, just looking at me, then down at his shoes. It was the first time I'd seen him quiet when someone else talked back to him, and for some reason, it was kind of scary. The feeling soon turned towards awkwardness, and I quickly set down the guitar and headed to the men's room to splash my face.

I cupped my hands under the cool stream of water, bringing it up towards my face and dunking it in. There was no way I was going to let myself think in terms of _what the hell was I thinking_. That'd be acknowledging defeat, and could potentially keep my mind distracted during the arrest at 5.

Sighing, I blotted the water off my face with a paper towel and left the men's room, the door swinging heavily shut behind me. For the last few days I hadn't felt like myself at all-and for what? Some random girl who stepped into my life? This was insane. She wasn't even cute, she was more than that. And I hated the fact that even though I'd only talked to her for about thirty minutes of my life, I wanted to know more about her every time I thought about her.

It took me a while before I actually stopped in my tracks and forced myself to realize that it wasn't the _situation_ that was insane, but _me._ Guitar lessons, weird fantasies-I'd even gone so far the previous night as to pick up a romance novel from the grocery store. Up till now, my classic Cho style had been cool, calm, and straight faced. And now, with Rigsby in his own romance-identity crisis and Jane being a lovestruck pain in Boss's ass, I couldn't let myself lose to them by suddenly flaunting my own interest in matters of the heart.

"Cho! Jane says it's time to go. We're going to meet Van Pelt and Rigsby at the house; they set the trap just like planned."

I turned and followed Boss down the hall, purposely avoiding Jane's eyes as I strode past him.

* * *

After the arrest was made and everything was taken care of, Rigsby and Grace were dismissed. I, unfortunately, had to go back and organize the case files. It'd been the Fish Tank guy, after all, which meant that I'd have to go back and rearrange evidence to support the fact that he was guilty. Not something that anybody enjoys doing-but then again, if you're working with Jane, it's no surprise.

Talking about Jane. I'd opted to sit in the coffee room with my laptop instead of in the bullpen, where I could watch them through Boss's window. Obviously, the blinds were shut, but she'd never realized that if you looked at them through a certain angle, you had a perfect view of everything going on inside. In this case, it was Jane sitting on her sofa, singing a rendition of Wannabe.

_What do you think about that? Now you know how I feel,  
Say you can handle my love, are you for real,  
I won't be hasty, I'll give you a try  
If you really bug me then I'll say goodbye._

Personally I'd have slapped Jane by now. If sung by a girl, the song's sexy; when sung by a guy, it's just masochist. For some reason though, Boss was smiling. Maybe there was something about 40-ish blonde men who sang pop songs with a guitar that turned her on.

After a while I realized that I couldn't hear them any more. Maybe they'd finally hooked up on the floor, or fallen to conspiring about something together. I walked out of the coffee room and scanned the bullpen. Nobody was there; Boss and Jane had gotten up and gone somewhere together. The guitar had been brought out, and was now lying deserted on Jane's sofa. I rolled my neck a bit, felt the crick. Maybe it'd be good to relax.

I settled down on the sofa, got a feel of the guitar, and played the few chords that Jane had taught me. Something in them clicked, and I was reminded of a song I'd heard several times on Youtube. I'd memorized most of the lyrics, and knew the song. Maybe I'd take a stab at it. Carefully filling my lungs with air, I tapped a few beats on the body of the guitar, and then started to play.

_Well you done done me and you bet I felt it  
I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted  
I fell right through the cracks  
Now I'm trying to get back  
Before the cool done run out  
I'll be giving it my bestest  
And nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention  
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some_

_I won't hesitate no more, no more  
It cannot wait, I'm yours_

_Well open up your mind and see like me  
Open up your plans and damn you're free  
Look into your heart and you'll find love love love love  
Listen to the music of the moment baby sing with me  
I love peace for melody  
And It's our God-forsaken right to be loved love loved love loved…  
_

I skipped over some of the lyrics that I couldn't remember, and fumbled over the parts that were a bit hard to play. Sometimes I'd mess up, but I blundered through it anyways. This was for fun, after all. No audience, no strings attached, and definitely nobody commenting on how 'flat' my voice was. As time wore on and nobody showed up to bother me, I made up my own spoofy lyrics to fill in for the ones I couldn't remember. In the end I just sang those, swinging myself off the sofa and pretending I was some hot Spanish singer. No wonder Jane thought this sort of stuff was fun.

_294-OIP, I don't know what I'm sayin',  
I never thought I'd fall for buttocks bigger than heaven,  
It's not like that matters, though,  
At least not to Kimball Cho,  
Your eyes are way more pretty,  
And your head so much smarter,  
I'll bet you've never ever put your head where your heart is,  
But Elise, that's where I hope,  
You'll change your mind the most,_

So I won't hesitate, no more, before  
My time runs out. I'm yours,  
And though you won't hear this song,  
hope I'm not wrong  
When I decide I'm yours…

…I'm yours, Elise.

I sang this song twice, all the while beating my guitar, going off key, and doing the occasional hip-swivel. In retrospect, it might have been wise to turn my head back occasionally, instead of sitting with my back turned to the rest of the room, but then again, if I had, I would never have experienced what happened next.

I finished the chorus one more time and whispered the 'I'm yours, Elise' part before swiveling around to give a bow to my imaginary audience. Except that it wasn't imaginary. She was there-294-OIP, Elise Han, Buttock Lawyer Lady, whatever you want to call her. Her eyes were huge, and she was staring straight at me.

A million different words filtered through my head at that instant, but the only one that came out was a soft, breathy "Shoot". Through the corner of my eye I saw Jane and Boss covering their laughs and scurrying off down the hall. Damnit. Of all the immature things Jane and Lisbon could have done, _they had set me up! _How he'd managed to hypnotize her into complying, I would never know. I set my jaw firmly, trying unsuccessfully to hold back any form of blushing, and started putting the guitar away.

"Hold on, Kimball-"

"I've got to get home." I'd just been thoroughly embarrassed in front of the girl I liked, and first-name terms weren't going to stop me. The guitar case clicked shut around the instrument, and I shoved past her and grabbed my jacket.

"No, wait!" Her high heels clicked rapidly as she tried to grab ahold of me. I tried to walk faster, but apparently mastery of her footwear had given her an advantage. Her hand caught my jacket, stopping me, and she jerked me around and looked directly into my eyes. I looked back at her.

Then without warning, the corners of her mouth suddenly turned up, and she was laughing, a full-fledged, one-hundred percent, I-like-you kind of laugh. It filled the empty office, ricocheted against the walls, and bounded towards me, opening up the last doors to my heart and branding me as a blind, lovestruck idiot. Sounds corny, I know. But I can't think of any other explanation for what I did next.

I grinned back.


End file.
